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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

This week, Dawn M. Turner joins us at the Mine!

Good morning Dawn. We’re glad to have you at the Mine this week.

Thanks for inviting me for a visit. :)

Could you tell us a little bit about
yourself?

I’m a full-time writer, married 21 years
this past July to a wonderful Christian man, and “mom” to two dogs, 2
cockatiels, a budgie, a guinea pig, and 3 hens. I spend a lot of time writing,
but I also enjoy deeply researching topics that grab my interest, especially
science- and medicine-related ones. God’s creation, in all its many facets,
never ceases to amaze and inspire me. I also love photography, scrapbooking,
crochet, and spinning my own yarn from wool and alpaca.

I’m currently working on multiple writing
projects, all but two of which are fiction. One of my latest releases is
entitled ‘In God’s Time.’ It wonthe Contemporary Romance category, as well as the Grand
Prize, in the Writers On The Storm Category Five writing competition in 2011
(my hubby’s fault, I tell him). Here’s the back cover blurb for it:

All things
come in God’s time, including love.

Tara Whitman has a big problem. She's
in love with her best friend, and it's getting harder to hide it from him. She
fears the truth will destroy a friendship she holds dear, even as she battles
jealousy toward the string of leggy blondes that parade through Jack’s life.

Jack Carlton spends his free time at
one social event or another with the latest woman he dates to protect a huge
secret he’s keeping from Tara - he’s in love with her, has been for years.
Haunted by the memory of a kiss shared in their teens, he doesn’t want to
endanger their friendship. Yet the thought of her kissing someone else drives
him to distraction if he lets himself dwell on it.

(Available for giveaway - autographed
paperback copy of IGT.)

What Genre(s) do you write?

Mostly contemporary romance, or anything
that contains romance. Romance is definitely my favorite genre to work with,
whether alone or combined with suspense, in full or just a suspense twist. I’ve
done a couple of Women’s Fiction books, one novella that’s currently available,
and a novel that’s not yet published. Even those have a romantic thread through
them. I mean, how can you write about husbands and wives and not have romance?
I also enjoy writing fantasy, medieval style in a world I’ve created. I publish
those as D.M. Turner versus my contemporary work being under Dawn M. Turner, so
fans don’t get confused.

What made you decide to be a writer?

God called me to it. I’ve known that for a
very long time, and I fought it nearly that long. I’ve always had a love of
words, and I express myself better in writing than I do verbally. I inherited
that from my dad, I think. I had a bad experience in high school with a teacher
who discouraged me from writing. That traumatized me sufficiently that I
stopped writing creatively altogether. Then a college English teacher wouldn’t
let me out of a short story assignment, no matter how hard I tried to convince
her it was pointless because I was a horrible writer, per the other teacher.
She loved my story and encouraged me to keep writing. I did for a couple of
decades but didn’t let anyone but my mother read my stuff until 2011, when my
hubby talked me into entering a writing competition. To my profound shock, I won.
At that point, I realized, no matter what anyone else had ever said, God had
made it abundantly clear what He wanted me to do and there’s no arguing with
Him. I’ve tried.

What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve encountered
concerning getting published?

Honestly, the biggest hurdle was a result
of talking with other authors who had taken years to get contracts only to have
editors with publishing houses rip the heart out of their stories and go to
great lengths at times to try to make them all sound the same as everyone else.
I’m willing to work with a good editor, but when it comes to keeping the
integrity of my stories intact and honoring the characters, I see that as a
hill worth dying on, as a friend would say. I won’t compromise some things. Knowing
those two things had me praying hard about what agents and publishers to query.
While I kept praying and waited for an answer, I kept writing. God’s answer was
“Go indie.” Scared me to death, the idea of being responsible for everything
myself, but it’s actually been a (usually) fun adventure.

Could you tell us what your favorite manuscript is, and why?

I love different stories and series for
different reasons, but I think Promises
is probably my all-time favorite. Wes is a hero after my own heart, and Terry
is so hurt by a broken world. I identify with her in some ways, yet she’s so
different from me in others. Those two as a couple have a special place in my
heart, too, because of all my characters, they’ve been with me almost longer
than anyone. I wrote the start of their story before I met my husband and
continued working on it after we got married. It went through a good number of
edits before I published it in 2013.

What books do you have in the works and when can we expect them?

In editing, I’ve got the final two books
in the Donovan Legacy series to go. Those books are about the lives and loves
of the children of Wes and Terry from Promises
(and their follow-up story, Beyond Hope).

In writing, I’m working on a new romance
series, with 2 books completed, 3 partially written, and 1 still to start. The
series is entitled Mysterious Ways, because each book is about the many ways
that God confronts challenges we often throw at Him. The first three books in
the series all stem from a conversation the heroes have about how they don’t
want to get married. Each of them presents their own challenge to God, not even
thinking God would do such things.

What person in your life would you say had/has the biggest
influence on your writing?

My husband actually. Though he’s not a
writer, and he hates to read (go figure), he’s been an avid supporter of my
work, even when it looked like I’d never do anything with it. He encouraged and
supported me in online participation with writers groups, classes I’ve taken
over the years to help my writing, and anything else writing-related. He’s also
supported me as a reader, despite the fact that’s meant living at times buried
in books. He makes jokes about my “crazy writer friends” and all of our
“imaginary friends,” but he’s never failed to encourage and support me on this
wacky journey I’ve taken. Without him, I don’t think I’d be writing today.

What author do you aspire to be like?

I can’t really say I aspire to be “like”
anyone else. I’m simply me. Unique as God made me. My writing style is
different from everyone else. My author voice is different from everyone else.
My path is different in so many ways. There’s a host of authors whose work I
absolutely love, but I don’t want to emulate them except in the quality of my
work.

What author do you like to read, and why?

Wow. Big question. I love the work of so
many authors - Janice Hanna Thompson, Colleen Coble, Terri Blackstock, Karen
Kingsbury, Dee Henderson (whose work introduced me to Christian fiction),
Lynette Eason, Candace Calvert, Michelle Sutton, Denise Hunter, and so many
other authors of Christian fiction. I also enjoy sweet romances by Joselyn
Vaughn, which I only discovered recently. I also love the ABA urban fantasy
novels by Patricia Briggs. The main thing I look for is well-developed
characters. If a book has those and an interesting storyline, I’m hooked. Those
authors never fail to grab me and make me laugh, cry, or both.

What do you find the most difficult about being a writer?

Staying focused at times. Life has a way
of throwing curve balls at us all the time, and sometimes I’m supposed to
ignore those and just keep working. Other times, they need my attention.
Sometimes it’s hard to be sure which is which and not waste time on the ones I
should ignore. Also, I’m a prolific writer, and I tend to have high
expectations for myself. That’s been a challenge, too, turning those
expectations over to God and setting the goals He has me to set. He’s an easier
taskmaster for me than I am. He plans ahead for the curve balls.

Thanks much for having me here! :) Renee, the first time I talked to my hubby (over the phone, sight unseen), I asked him what he liked to read. His response? "I don't know how to read. I'm a drummer." Okay. Needless to say, he actually reads really well. He just chooses not to most of the time. *G*

Welcome, Dawn! I too "secretly wrote," for nearly 30 years. It was so freeing to finally tell people, "I'm a writer!." Lol It's hard to convince yourself that God has put you on that path when others discourage. So glad kept at it!

Thanks, Peggy. It took God more than 20 years to get me on the right track, despite encouragement he gave me along the way. It's amazing how powerful discouragement can be. I fought Him for so long, and now I want to thump myself upside the head. The peace that came with finally getting on track often has me questioning WHY I fought him so long. Discouragement is nasty powerful, and it's hard to defeat. I'm grateful God is patient and determined.

Dawn is one of my all time favorite authors - she's written stories from the heart that make me want to KNOW how her characters continue to grow after I've read her books . .LOVE the Donovan Legacy. . .Wes and Terry's story is only the beginning - and Dawn has covered the lives of their children in such ways you think you KNOW them as people down the road from where you live. . .or wish you lived down the road from them.. .';) Missy's story is a heart gripper and the book Dawn wrote about Terry (Beyond Hope) is really something. . .I'll be watching for Dawn Turner books for a good long time - a keeper shelf awaits each one!LOVE this interview!

Yes, I can relate to that one! My husband loves to read Scripture and all kinds of apologetic material but NOT fiction...especially romance. LOL He keeps saying he's going to read one of my books. NOT! Maybe I'll get him to pick one up when it's finally in print. :)

Nancy, promotion takes as much time as each author chooses to put into it, and the indies I know run the gamut in that regard. Some spend a LOT of time (and MONEY) doing various promotions. Others use only freebie promo types of things, a lot, a little, or anywhere in between. Others do passive marketing - they don't actively promote their books - they just keep writing and let word of mouth among their readers be their best advertisement. So the amount of promotion, and what avenues are used, is highly individualized.